CTSI Emphasis on Team Science and Collaboration Influences Criteria for Faculty Promotions

With an increasing culture of team science – fostered in part by the CTSI – the time seems right to highlight revisions to the SMD faculty promotion criteria recognizing that faculty can make important scientific contributions beyond being principal investigator on grants or first or senior author on papers.

The revisions to the URSMD Regulations of the Faculty made in July 2014, formally recognized the importance of teamwork and collaboration in faculty promotion. The regulations describe excellence in research as “a sustained program of intellectually independent investigative work, recognized by competitively peer-reviewed grants as PI and/or as a collaborative investigator.”

If a faculty member’s intellectual independence is not evident from PI or first/senior author roles, their department chair and referee letters from scientific peers can specifically comment on the unique role the faculty member plays within their investigative team. These letters must describe how the faculty member demonstrates “intellectual stewardship of an identifiable part of the research program.”

Faculty pursuing a team science approach to their work can access resources at the CTSI, which believes multidisciplinary team science enhances the significance, innovation and rigor of URMC research. Get help finding research collaborators through the Research Help Desk, by using our new Find a Collaborator or Mentor tool, or by exploring other ways to make research Connections.

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About the Blog

This blog aims to tell the stories of those that have benefitted from CTSI support and the impact that our sponsored investigators have had on the community. We also will inform the UR community of the services and funding opportunities available through the CTSI.

CTSI Stories invites your submissions. If you have a story you’d like to contribute, or even just an idea for a post, please contact Susanne Pallo.